Noida authority stops Ponty’s City Center project

The change of guard in Uttar Pradesh has dealt a severe blow to businessman Ponty Chadha. Darpan Singh reports.

The change of guard in Uttar Pradesh has dealt a severe blow to businessman Ponty Chadha.

The Noida Authority has issued a showcause notice and asked Chadha's realty arm Wave Mega City Center Pvt Ltd to immediately stop his ambitious City Center project spread in 162 hectares of prime land in sectors 32 and 25A.

The authority said the firm had not got the project’s layout and building map approved. “The firm was found to have been carrying out massive digging work in a large area of plot I (block CC), resulting in soil being piled up,” the authority said on Tuesday. “The dust was causing inconvenience to general public,” it said.

The authority has also asked the firm to cover the dug up soil, ensure continuous sprinkling of water (to check presence of dust in the air) and remove soil from the site. The authority has asked the firm to furnish, in three days, details of the volume of soil dug up besides other relevant details.

The Noida authority in March last year, when BSP's Mayawati was chief minister, sold the City Center plot to the firm for a whopping Rs 6,570 crore. Ponty was supposedly close to Mayawati.

Soon after the government change, Wave sought to sound confident. “We do not see any problem. Our businesses in UP have been for the last 60 years,” Ponty's son and joint managing director of Wave Infratech Manpreet Singh Chadha said in March.

City Centre’s Phase I development is slated for completion by 2015. The firm has planned 70-storey towers. Ponty runs one of the largest liquor businesses in UP.